GM Cthulhu's page

Hello all GMs. I will be starting this AP for my group in two months and was looking to see how many GMs jumped right into Roslars tomb or did session zero, or extensive background sessions before dumping the pc’s into the coffins.

I jumped straight in because I wanted the party to be complete strangers waking up in complete bewilderment. A session zero would have killed that vibe.

I started the first session where every PC gave a brief description of themselves and why they were in Roslar's Coffer that night. Then I had them roll perception checks and whoever got highest woke up first.

I was able to use their brief backstories a little. The fighter was the only permanent resident, so when they got back to town in module 2 he visited his childhood home and found the remains of his family.

One thing I wish I had done was something I read here too late: a couple of GMs arranged it so that one of their PCs was visiting Roslar's Coffer to deliver a certain package, unbeknownst to them on behalf of the Whispering Way.

Great recap! Sounds fun. (I mazed a PC, too.)

When the PCs are heading to Tumbaja Mountain, does Miraina give them a map of the interior?

The book makes clear that she gives them a map of the Blue Gardens of Tlil. So I would think she would do the same for Tumbaja Mountain.

Yes, she probably should. It won't be nearly as useful as the map of the Blue Gardens though.

So despite my best efforts to make the door to the underlevel unbreakable, my party found a way around it. Literally. They used the Staff of Earth and Stone they dound in the shed to first cast Move Earth to dig down and then Passwall to go across to the downward shaft to area C1.

I'd have preferred they find the locking mechanism but I also believe in rewarding PC ingenuity.

That meant they then encountered the ximtal sahkil. That was a fun fight! I had it start in its natural form, rather than the miasma the module suggested, as I wanted it to get its high-level spells off at the start of the fight, which it couldn't do if in gaseous form.

The party spellcasters wasted the first few rounds casting things like greater invisibility and mirror image (totally useless against the sahkil's constant true seeing). Also, the cleric hit it with a destruction spell, not realising that it was immune to death effects.

It mazed the fighter straight away, and his intelligence meant he needed to roll a 20 to get out. It then cast two horrid wiltings in succession. I'd swapped out its imprisonment spell for an additional horrid wilting as imprisonment is effectively a save or exit the campaign spell. I have no hesitation in hitting my party with save or die spells, but that's going too far.

It smacked the rogue down to about -60hp, but the cleric was able to bring him back using Inspiring Recovery. He's got the Healer's Touch feat which maximises heal spells.

Eventually they brought it down taking considerable damage to themselves, a very satisfying fight for them.

In accordance with the rules of comedy, as the monster died the fighter rolled his 20 to escape the maze spell.

And are you seriously suggesting your party didn't loot their way through the Blue Gardens even after they'd met their plot objectives?

When Maraina told my PCs they would be able to keep anything they found in the Blue Gardens, their greedy little eyes all lit up.

^^^^^^^
Yeah, I could see that happening so I put the magically locked door down to the lower levels in the floor of the arcane nexus room and made it unbreakable without the MacGuffin, er locking mechanism. I also put a second moss golem in that room because it's such a cool monster and I didn't want my party not to fight one.

My PCs have along with them a dominated guard who described what he knew of the various rooms in the Blue Gardens and they've already deduced, without a shred of evidence, that the MacGuffin must be in the hazardous materials room. Because they've played enough Paizo adventure paths to know that's where it'll be.

And they're right dammit!

Hmm, you're a bit ahead of me anmd I haven't prepared for the Ximtal Sahkil fight yet, but you raise valid points.

I think I'll nerf it in some ways - get rid of its Imprisonment spell as that would effectively kill a PC, as you note.

But I also think I'll enhance it in others: changing it's gaseous form speed from 10' to its usual fly speed of 60'. That way it will manage to "surge" forward.

I think I'll treat the description of miasma as "gaseous form like" because, as you say, true gaseous form would be inconsistent with its isolation ability.

But yeah, the monster as written has inherent inconsistencies and wasn't properly playtested. I'd be tempted to swap it out for something else but I do think it's still a pretty cool encounter that I will enjoy throwing at my party. It's also the sort of tough encounter they will get a big kick out of beating.

I'm just reading ahead and I have to say that the Incomplete Tzitzimitl at the entrance to the pyramid has the potential to be a TPK.

Constant Arcane Sight and True Seeing make it almost impossible for it not to see the party approach. The DC 27 Wail of the Banshee will probably take out half the party! Then there's the eye beam that does 16d6 damage and bypasses SR. Nasty.

This is going to be fun. I haven't looked forward to a fight this much since the dragon in the icy waterfall in book 4.

I'm not entirely convinced my party are going to sacrifice themselves and their souls to stop the Whispering Tyrant, which is the entire point of the campaign and a major reason I wanted to run it! They know he's a lich so he'll survive the blast, leaving their sole achievement the destruction of the Radiant Fire, the Tyrant's super weapon.

The problem is they know the Shattered Shield was in 12 pieces and that three have been used already. They may well reason that he's only got another nine shots (they don't know about the one embedded in the Tyrant) and that that's not enough to sacrifice themselves for.

So I'm considering upping the stakes. I'm thinking they may find notes left behind by Umbarno Xipali or Istravek - possibly both - hinting at a way of using the Kumaru Tree to make more shards.

I'm going to have to focus my PCs attention on Umbarno Xipali and his plans. Thus far, I've run two of the Jolizpan city encounters - the wyrwood mages at the docks and the ypotryll at the plaza.

The problem is that both of these seem like random encounters to my players. In fact, when they heard the screams for help from the docks, at first I thought they weren't even going to bother to go to the rescue. It was only when I had a random urchin beg them to save his family from the fire that they charged in.

So the next few encounters, I'm going to make it abundantly clear that they're being targeted personally, perhaps an ambush by wyrwood soldiers as they leave their lodgings. Then I'll have Miraina speculate that the absence of town militia - who all left to fight the dragon - has made the PCs into quasi authority figures who are a direct threat to Xipali and his nefarious plans.

Otherwise they're just as likely to leave town straight away to take on the dragon.

Shouldn't the wyrwood mages have spellbooks?

Now you mention it, probably yes. It can be handwaved away by noting they're constructs sent by Umbarno. He probably keeps their spellbook(s) at base.

"Clash Of Saints" Unarmed Problem

The book specifies that the 1st, 3rd, and 4th battles are all unarmed combats.

That's gonna be a big problem for my PCs because none of them have improved unarmed strike. That means that every time they punch they will provoke an AOO. And they don't actually threaten any squares and thus can't take AOOs themselves.

Maybe that's why the opponents are so much lower level than the PCs...

How did you all handle this disadvantage for the PCs?

Allen

I let them be beaten up.

Hi, brain trust:

Some questions for you about the start of this book.

Have any wyrwood attacks occurred before the PCs arrive? I imagine so.

Does the following sequence of events match your understanding of intent of the book?

Several weeks ago: dragon takes over Tumbaja Mountain.
A few days later: Children of Kumaru take over Blue gardens

This week: Blossom Days:
Day 1:
Day 2: PCs arrive
Day 3: Attack #1
Day 4: Attack #2
Day 5: Attack #3, Attack #4
Day 6: Attack #5, Blossom Parade
Day 7: Solstice, Clash of the Saints, Flowers For The Ancestors (in the river)

Thanks,
Allen

I started book 5 yesterday. I didn't go with the exact timeline with the book as the party had just had a hard slog through Gallowspire and I wanted a light-hearted break.

I was tempted to skip the fight with the dire crocodiles, but instead re-jigged it slightly. I had the party hear screams while crossing the river, only to see a Furcifer chasing citizens looking for its next meal. The PCs came to the rescue while the locals ran to Miraina Olviris for help - she is a mighty wizard after all!

Miraina was impressed that her help wasn't needed and greeted the PCs warmly as per the book. I did it that way as I thought it a bit coincidental the way the module had it that she just happened to be wandering by - the only person in Jolizpan who can ID the obols - as they arrive. I wanted a plausible hook to get her there.

They then rested, went up a level, and spent the next day shopping, unloading the gear they'd been looting since mid Book 3, and ordering new magic items.

They then went to the Blossom Parade where the bard wowed the locals with his dancing, before visiting the Clash of Saints. Rather than require one PC to enter all three contest, I let them pick and choose. The scout lost the first contest, quite badly. The bard narrowly lost the second, but only because his opponent had swigged his potion of glibness beforehand.

The gnome cleric then entered the third contest and what followed was a bit of slapstick. The drunken master had a lot of attacks but needed to roll 19 or 20 to hit, then doing lots of damage if successful. The gnome found it much easier to hit, but did miniscule damage each time. The umpire ended the fight in a draw when the gnome went below zero hp, only for his contingent healing to kick in with an immediate action, and he then cast Heal on himself. The umpire had decided that mid-fight heal spells were taking the spirit of the contest a bit too far. And the players were getting bored, it had gone on for at least 12 rounds.

Next session, the wyrwood fights will begin. A lot of the magic items my party has bought require upgrades or are a bit bespoke, so I ruled that they'll be ready in a few days. This will give the party plenty of opportunity to trapse across town and deal with the trouble they find.

I'm just about to start running this Book. I realized that it repeats the trope of the PCs arriving...by sheer coincidence...just as the town's major annual festival is starting. (This also happened in Book 2.)

This isn't a big deal. But my rule-of-thumb is that a story should really only have a maximum of one coincidence. Any more and I fear it will strain the reader's/viewer's/player's suspension of disbelief.

Allen

Agree. I'm at the exact stage you are and I'd noticed that too. Book 2 was long enough ago that my players won't think it's that big a deal. But I'm not going to over-emphasize the festival, I don't think it adds much to the story. My party doesn't have a suitable PC to enter the Clash of Saints anyway. None of them do unarmed combat and the party bard would have a decent shot at the boasting contest but he'd get flattened by the other two.

The repetitiveness isn't nearly as bad as Book 1, where the players went to three waystations in rapid succession, and each of them had had a recent rebellion against the local boss.

I picked Tyrant's Grasp to GM precisely because I wanted the players to have to sacrifice themselves in order to 'win'. I also like how it's an ultimate sacrifice, in that their souls die too.

However, I am planning on upping the stakes for them. I'm thinking of them stumbling across some research notes, found after they kill Istravek, detailing how to increase the power of the Radiant Fire. Perhaps by making more kumaru pieces like those from the Shattered Shield. (Still mulling over the details.)

So they'll know their sacrifice won't permanently destroy Tar-Baphon but will know that it will deprive him of the Ultimate Weapon.

My party was fighting the bloody bones in the Hall of Mirrors. The cleric had got close to a mirror and badly mauled when a bloody bones leapt out and got him with three hits plus a rend.

The sorceress decided to hit that bloody bones with a disintegrate spell, but fumbled the ranged touch attack. Not only that but the roll to confirm the fumble was a 2. Our house rule is that fumbles like that hit other party members. Naturally I rolled to hit the cleric. The sorceress rolled to get over the cleric's SR and (of course) rolled high. She then rolled damage and (again, of course) succeeded.

RIP Cleric. The players all found this hilarious. But now there was a conundrum, how do they resurrect the cleric when they had no-one to cast a resurrection spell and no 10,000gp of diamond dust for the material component?

The bard has the bright idea to contact Arazni using a speak with undead spell cast on her lungs. This drew her attention and she used a sending spell to reach out. I had her send them a scroll of resurrection, which the bard was able to use with UMD.

I *love* it when party members die and it's not me who did it!

Heh. I totally freaked out my party when I read the description of the brass ring found in area K6:

"A ring of green brass, large enough for a human to stick his head through."

They've taken the description literally. Now they're arguing amongst themselves, trying to work out who's going to stick their head through it to see what it does. The hobgoblin, svirfneblin, half-orc and tiefling are all saying they're not human so it can't be one of them, while the two humans are saying no way Jose.

They're going to be very disappointed when they find out it's part of a lock mechanism for a door.

Regarding creatures dying in the boneyards. I'd decided ahead of time that, if any of my PCs died while there, their obols would protect them. I was going to have them be resurrected in the same place they woke up the first time: in a sarcophagus in Roslar's tomb. Of course, they'd then face the difficulty of being alone and trying to find the rest of the party. I was thinking of giving them a permanent negative level as punishment though - the same as they'd incur after a Raise Dead spell.

It wasn't needed though, no-one died. In fact, my party was death free until they descended into Gallowspire in book 4.

The description of the witchgates in J6 says "The PCs can shut the entire network down, or they can attempt a DC 30 Use Magic Device check to permit specific exceptions to the network while keeping it active, such as to allow Arazni and the PCs to teleport but denying this ability to the Whispering Tyrant and his forces."

I think this creates two problems:

1. Tar-Baphon *must* be able to teleport during the battle at the end of the book with Arazni. Otherwise he'll be (temporarily) destroyed during that battle. This would contradict the necessary plot point that he gets away.

2. It seems odd to me that the check is a UMD. My party has a high-level wizard. He has no ranks in UMD because wizards don't usually need it to operate magical contraptions. It seems to me that he should have at least as good a chance to operate the network with his crazy-high Spellcraft and Knowledge (arcana).

1. Tar-Baphon is a mythic demi-god who created the witchgates. Either he's so powerful he can overcome their limitations or he built in a "loophole" for himself.

2. I'd say your wizard has a very good chance of understanding the theory behind the network but not how to do the actual manipulation.

My party is exploring the lower level of Gallowspire and, once again, I'm going to have to re-balance the fights, they're just too damn easy.

The Gallowdead's aura was easily dealt with by the Bard's countersong. What would have been a party debilitating DC 27 save or be shaken followed by sickened next round, became a "roll 4 or better to get the countersong off". After that, she went down easily: her main attack dealt negative energy damage, which the obols partially absorbed.

The Tar-Baphon simulacrum was slightly more challenging. The scout saved vs Finger of Death but not against the empowered Enervation, which he didn't like. The simulacrum then tried to Black Tentacles the rest of party, as they were all bunched up together. The Cleric has liberation as a domain, so was able to counter that. Again, he went down easily after that.

I think the problem is that both encounters were solo monsters, so from now on I'm going to give all such encounters a few henchmooks, who can absorb physical attacks, protect against flanking and sneak attacks, etc.

Next week they should be encountering Jandoraka, who at least has three mook bone devils to help out.

I don't want to kill the party, but I DO want them to be challenged.

GM Cthulhu wrote:

The party rogue detected the trap on the door to J7 but totally fluffed his disable device check, so he's now a hand short.

My condolensces to your rogue, I hope they weren't a two-weapon fighter?

He certainly was! I found some optional rules for players who'd lost a limb. The only thing that he really misses is the two weapon fighting, and he's not happy about a -5 penalty to Disable Device either. They've just finished level 2 of Gallowspire and I informed they'll go up to 13th level, so naturally the rogue is pestering the cleric to take Regeneration as his 7th level spell on day 1.

The ending of level 2 was very enjoyable - for both me and the party. I said earlier I'd decided to put Tycha Ghuzmaar and his henchghouls in Area J8 as I thought a boss fight for their final encounter would be more exciting, rather than the boring bone golems the module had there.

The rogue snuck into the area J8, and did so well on his stealth roll that he went unnoticed by Tycha and co, who I'd decided were camping out in the ceiling in the passage leading up to level 1. The rogue made it all the way down to the Catacombs, noticed the gallowdead in K1 and slowly backed away. The cleric then went to the edge of the pit, cast Clairvoyance to spy on the gallowdead, worked out what it was and the party decided to rest up before going down to it.

However, the cleric HAD been noticed by Tycha who then followed the party as they made their way to safety. Tycha stabbed the bard in the back, who luckily made his save against the Death Attack. If he hadn't then I'd planned to have Tycha use Quiet Death before moving onto the next party member in line, the sorceress.

As it was when the party heard the bard's shriek of pain, Tycha ran back to J8, hotly pursued by the party who were ambushed by the henchghouls. The fight then was then on in earnest. It was a close thing but the sorceress took Tycha out with her third disintegrate spell - she hadn't got over his SR on the first and he'd made his save on the second. The ghouls then didn't last long.

It was one of those fights where they could have lost if things had happened slightly differently, and I think they knew that. So, yeah, fun for party and GM alike.

My party continues to explore the second level of Gallowspire.

One thing I did was to rearrange the encounters slightly. I moved Tycha Ghuzmaar to area J8, as I thought it better to have a boss fight before they level up to 13th and level down to the catacombs. And Tycha fit the bill better than the four bone golems the module had there, which I thought would be anti-climactic. The party instead encountered the golems in area J4.

The party rogue detected the trap on the door to J7 but totally fluffed his disable device check, so he's now a hand short. Too bad the cleric doesn't have the regenerate spell yet!

We're finally at the end of the book! Just got one more sessions of wrap-up and they're onto greener and grassier pas- Oh wait it's Virlych.

The fight against The Haunting Dark went pretty well - Wizard summoned a flying Ankylosaurus for the Paladin to ride into battle, they cast Death Ward on it to make it immune to the nightwing's Channel Energy buuuut it didn't do much for the Cone of Cold right to the face. Still, it survived long enough to make a couple attacks, and when it died to a nasty AoO the Paladin dismounted and managed to mount the nightwing instead. Swashbuckler hit with the Needle. it passed its save but still 50-something hp down is a nasty blow. Also the cleric had a big reveal of a sort of awakened-aasimar state (she's been outwardly a half-elf the whole time but an aasimar on paper, I know this isn't reeeeaally how aasimar heritage works but it was fun! Some stuff about Sarenrae's fury burning through her and such.) She had wings of fire and a Flame Blade (to hit that 12 touch AC instead of dealing with the 29 AC) and used Invoke Deity:Glory Domain (via Deific Essence) to get heroism and add a lil 1d6 positive energy damage each turn but mostly to look really cool.

I'm gonna forego the final fight with the zombie sailors and the mutated turtle - it's a cool setpiece but my party are exhausted and running on fumes and I think it's crossing into the territory of just being frustrating rather than impactful apocalyptic narrative. The death of the Haunting Dark is a good note to finish on, so it'll be a mad dash to get all the survivors to the ship (from both the Tower and the Cathedral), and then setting sail for a much needed rest.

Guess I should start prepping book 4 now....

I also liked the battle with the Haunting Dark, but my party were fairly underwhelmed when they found out what Iomedae’s Needle actually DID. The buildup and effort required to obtain it had them expecting a super-weapon, what they got was a bit lame.

In hindsight I should probably have finished the module there/then, as you did. The zombie sailors and turtle were fairly anti-climactic after the HD. But it did provide a bit of amusement to all when the party witch forgot to move after casting a spell at the turtle, leaving himself in range to be attacked and grappled.

There's another Haunting Dark in Book 4, the last encounter before they enter Gallowspire. It's got a silly backstory where it's the brother of the HD the party killed in Book 3. But neither it nor the party had any way of knowing that, so I dropped it and threw a different monster at them instead.

So reading over the necromancy lab again, is giving the impression that the crescent moon gemstone isn't actually needed to unlock the secret in the room. I looked into it since my party didn't chase down the mist vampire to finish him off, and therefore didn't get the gemstone. So what's the point of the gemstone if it's not actually needed?

The description of the hidden compartment doesn't give any other way of opening it other than using the gem. My party haven't reached that room yet but, when they do, no gem no treasure.

[was missing your updates! hoped you hadn't dropped your campaign!]

Aw shucks! It's slow going. The way my party plays we get on average about two encounters per session, one session a week, and we only play my campaign two weeks out of four. We alternate with another of the guys GMing Reign of Winter.

And to be honest, I've been a bit disappointed with Gallowspire. It's just a long dungeon crawl where they kill the baddies, take the loot and will eventually get the right plot token to insert into the witch-gate to shut it down.

BUT

Last week was fun. In a major facepalm moment, the party fighter decided he wouldn't bother to wait while the rest of the party recovered from the encounter with the Dreadwraiths. He had his hp back and no ability damage, so didn't want to hide out the 16 hours it would take the cleric to get spells back and cast Restoration on those that needed it.

So off he went to dig in the bones for the magic item the party knew to be buried in area J1. He ignored the advice of literally everyone else in the party not to go it alone.

I rolled up a random encounter from the table on page 81 and he ended up facing two vampire warriors. They snuck up on him and hit him from behind while he was digging, and he took multiple hits before he got to where his weapon was and could finally fight back. Unfortunately he's very much a defensive fighter - hard to hit but doesn't do much damage so couldn't beat their fast healing. Additionally, they'd drunk their fly potions so they could ignore the difficult terrain, which also meant he was hampered in combat and couldn't flee. He tried a potion of invisibility but they had blindsight. Down he went.

The party searched for him, found his dead body which had been stripped of everything, including his bag of holding which held roughly half the rest of the party's treasure. To say the party is angry with him would be understating it.

They raised him from the dead, making it absolutely clear that the gp cost was coming out of his share. They then cast Locate Object on the fighter's tower shield. On the fly, I created a room between J5 and J6 where I told them the shield was, before calling the session to a halt.

I now have to figure out whether to give them a chance to get their loot back. I could just have them encounter the vampires gloating over their new-found wealth, but I think that would be too easy - stupidity should have an appropriate reward. Or I could have the vampires abandoning some of the heavier or more useless (to them) items, but taking off with the good stuff. So they'll find the fighter's armor, shield, some of the heavy weapons, but everything else will be lost forever.

If I do give it all back, I think I'll make them earn it. Two vampire warriors will be way too easy for the entire party. I might have them find that a much stronger monster has killed the vamps and appropriated the party's possessions.

Decisions, decisions...

My party is slowly working their way to Gallowspire.

Some fights were childishly easy: The Pallis Sunrise had a feeble AC of 20 and lasted about two rounds after the party used the Wand of Communal Protection from Energy (fire). The Tempest Guards were sitting ducks to area effect spells. Otto Canrivash was wiped out after someone used invisibilty purge early on. The various graveknights encountered haven't been much of a challenge either.

By contrast the dybbuk was problematic, and the Dreadwraiths could have easily been a TPK if I hadn't nerfed them a bit by making them play the fight a bit dumb. Their Con damage was downright nasty, and my party suck at fighting incorporeals.

Next week they'll encounter Tycha Ghuzmaar. He could be nasty if he can use his death attack in, but his stealth is such that he will probably be seen before he can get his three rounds of study in. I think I'll give him a potion of invisibility to give him a boost. If I don't, I think that fight will be too easy as well.

Just looked these up, the gravesludge looks like a grat fit in particular! Looking at its Wall of Ectoplasm spell and imagining a scenario where it's walled off an area to feed or something and the PCs have to break in and kill it before it devours the civilians.

I'm gonna keep the idea in reserve because I think my party are already suffering and I don't want this last part to be too much of a slog - pressure is good here but too much and they're just gonna get into a "gods damn it, another thing to deal with" headspace. Though I might add gravesludges to book 4 maybe, if I find a good space for them. Thanks for the idea ^^.

There's already a gravesludge in Book 4, fairly early on once they get to Gallowspire. And it's in a great spot, in a mausoleum that's knee deep in filthy water. My party will be encountering it this week.

The Umbral Dragon fight was lots of fun. Once it realised its negative energy breath weapon wasn't doing as much damage as it hoped, it switched to its Shadow Breath attack. Most of the party failed the save and were blinded for the first two rounds of the fight. Two rounds of that attack and three of the six party members were reduced to zero strength and were lying unconscious. The rogue was at 2 strength and effectively out of the fight, leaving the bard and strength-reduced fighter to carry on.

The spellcasters had spent their time while blinded summoning allies, so there was always something harrying the dragon, preventing its full attention being on the party.

The fighter was acting last and got a blow in doing something feeble like 10 hp damage. It was then a new round, the dragon's turn and the party was preparing for a TPK. Fortunately for them, it had taken a fair bit of damage by then and I read out the following from the module: "If reduced to fewer than 75 hit points, he uses shadow walk to flee."

Yes, the fighter's final 10hp blow had taken it over that threshold. If the dragon had acted for one more round, it would have been a TPK, but I played it by the module to spare the party.

One thing I had to do was include a scroll of restoration in the dragon's hoard. If I hadn't there would have been no way to restore the Str drain of the unconscious characters as the cleric was one of them.

My party is slowly working their way towards Gallowspire. I re-jigged the encounters on the way because I wanted to end last week's session on a literal cliffhanger.

The party was halfway up the cliff next to the waterfall when they all failed their Perception checks and didn't see THE DRAGON. The session ended when it attacked.

I suspect one or party members will die in the encounter. If so, I'll include enough diamond dust in its loot pile to pay for Raise Dead spell(s).

Just starting this book.

How do the PCs *not* detect that Arazni is lying to them in the initial meeting? She only has Bluff +12.

Arazni says, "I am the one person on two continents who possesses both the power to destroy Tar-Baphon and a burning desire to do so."

But Arazni knows that she can't actually destroy him...and that's not even her actual plan.

Thanks,
Allen

Well, no. Her plan IS to destroy him, just not in the way she's saying. If the PCs get off a successful sense motive, I'd say something like "she's telling the truth but she's definitely holding something back".

That's if your PCs dare to use sense motive against a legendary, demi-god lich who could destroy them all without breaking a sweat. Mine didn't.

This is pure conjecture...but when this AP was being written most of the Paizo people were deep in the development of PF2. So I suspect that this AP got substandard editing, including matching loot to level.

I'm finding errors in game mechanics, plot holes, etc. all over the place!

Allen

I don't think so. Prior to Tyrant's Grasp, I ran Strange Aeons. This AP doesn't have noticeably more editing errors than that one did.

Unfortunately my table have been spoiled on what happens to Vigil (and some other features of the adventure) by accidentally stumbling across details on the wiki/future adventures/memes on Reddit. They don't know the specifics, but I think they know it's coming. So I guess that's gonna put them on edge a little, maybe enough to preserve some resources (though I'm sad I'm not gonna get the raw surprise reaction from them).

For what it's worth, my party was particularly un-surprised when Vigil was destroyed. The already knew that a fragment of the Shattered Shield had destroyed Roslar's Coffer, that theft and intrigue in Vigil had centered on the remaining Shield fragments, that the Seal Breakers were looking to destroy the last seal which they knew to be somewhere in Vigil, and that Gildais had visited the Seal Breakers a few weeks prior and told them not to bother: another way to destroy the seal had been found.

My party has accepted Arazni's mission to go to Gallowspire and close the witchgates. The problem I have is that for lengthy overland travel they've decided to use the Wind Walk spell. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to do, but it will allow them to bypass all the cool encounters on the way, particularly the dragon, which I'm really looking forward to throwing at them.

So, I'm going to have to come up with some monsters that aerially attack them in gaseous form, forcing them to travel by foot. Alternatively, I can have the Wind Walk spell become unreliable in the same way Teleport spells are around the Witchgates. Either way, there need to be serious consequences to travelling that way.

Any thoughts?

I let my PCs rest up in the Redoubt. Area G4, the OverGrown Temple, is explicitly stated to be a safe holdup place if they get on the good side of the sump steward.

But once the Radiant Fire had been used: I allowed no rest! They players took the hints NPCs dropped about time being of the essence, but if they'd ignored me I'd have simply interrupted their rest with random encounters.

So, starting this module this week and just planning ahead...

The module says of area H6: "The pit has openings into the two levels below the Great Seal, Tyrant’s Wrath (area I) and the Upper Crypts (area J)", but it doesn't explicitly state where in area I it opens into.

Area J1 says "The massive hole in the wall leads to the pit (area H6)" but there's no equivalent comment for any of the rooms in area I. I'm assuming I1 as the most logical spot?

I went easy on them for the last fight with the turtle and draugr. They were so low and resources I had NPCs join the fray. They won thanks to the draugr captain failing his save vs a command undead from the sorceress.

They loaded the refugees onto the barge and off they went.

Now they want nothing more than to sell their loot and buy magic items. Fortunately the cleric gets teleport as a domain spell, so they'll be doing that before they go onto the next phase of the campaing.

Thanks to all those who provided advice and feedback and I might see you on the Gardens of Gallowspire board!

Still not letting them rest. Last week they had the fight with Ceto, then fought their way across town to the ballista tower, then fought the Haunting Dark.

They wanted to rest but I had the Captain point out that the time was currently mid-afternoon, and they needed to evacuate the survivors before nightfall because they had no idea what manner of undead nastiness would then emerge. They got the hint.

The Haunting Dark proved challenging. It made its save vs Iomadae's Needle. The sorceress consistently failed to get over its SR. The bard failed his save vs Finger of Death and went down, saved by the cleric's Breath of Life spell, but was still out of the fight. The witch didn't have much that could affect it. I had Dondun cast Greater Invisibility on the scout who was able to get a few rounds of sneak attack.

Ultimately it went down but the party certainly felt exhausted by it. They're very low on spells/resources and I'm still not going to let them rest until they've loaded the survivors onto the boat and fought the turtle and draugr.

Make them sweat. Do not let them sleep. They are IN THE APOCALYPSE. If they ever start getting complacent, tighten the screws.

I'm doing just that. They wanted to rest up before going below the cathedral to get the Spear of Iomadae, but I had the Captain emphasise how many lives were at risk and how time was of the essence. They were fairly mauled by the fights below so I re-jigged the spells that Aylunna had to be of slightly more assistance to them.

Next week they're going to want to rest up before getting the Spear across to the Ballistae tower and taking on the Haunting Dark. Again, time will be of the essence.

And if they DO rest, I'll just have random encounters turn up.

My party had the big showdown with Yosiduin. As my party is 6 PCs I beefed up the encounter by throwing in a wraith, mostly because its Lifesense ability annoyed those players who rely on stealth and invisibility. I also tweaked Yosiduin's cruelties, giving him the curse one because it's so much nastier than the others.

Alas, the fight was fairly one sided. The cleric got off a shackle spell on Yosiduin early on and he spent the rest of the fight with his hands manacled behind his back. So all he could use was his corrupting touch attacks, with bestow curse thrown in; he managed to get three separate curses on the scout. The cleric only had one break enchantment spell, so he's going to be stuck with two of the curses for a while. Given the situation in Vigil, resting and recuperating isn't going to be viable, and two of the party members also have Con drain from the wraith.

The party wasn't exactly surprised to get to the surface and find the Radiant Fire had been used.

I'm thinking of running the rest of the module without letting the party sleep and recover spells. It should be do-able, but I think things will get a bit tight.

After I read that the Seal-Breaker Knights had symbols of skulls on their armor and shields, I decided to have a bit of fun. When the scout got a good listen check at a door behind which were some knights, I had him overhear a conversation where the knights were discussing the skulls and trying to work out whether or not they were the baddies.

For those who don't get the reference: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY

My party is finding the Redoubt a bit easy. They had a mild scare against the Red Queen Guardians, got annoyed by the Haunts, talked their way past the Sump Steward and the Geist, breezed past Cleverquill, before entering the main lair via the tower into area G16.

Despite what the module said, I had the four seal breaker knights in G15 overhear the fight with Evark Nox and charge into the fray. They were followed a round later by Roscaso and even then the fight was fairly one-sided. Two of my party went down unconscious but the outcome was never in doubt: there were two undamaged spellcasters at the end, hurling blast-em spells at the bad guys from range.

I'm going to have to beef up the final encounter with Yosiduin. I'm toying with the idea of having Dondun Daradun betray them at an opportune time, or giving Yosiduin some extra henchmen. Decisions, decisions...

LOL, the best laid plans of mice and GMs etc etc.

You could have Kilibrandt as the wise crow who gets kidnapped by the seal breakers and taken to the sewers? Or if you wanted to keep her as the ambusher, simply have the party find the bodies of two wise crows in the storefront, instead of three.

I would suggest reading the whole module, and the beginning of the next one, there is usually a reason for increased loot.

That makes sense. I have actually read the entire adventure path, but to get an idea of themes, plots etc, I didn't pay particular attention to individual encounters or treasure.

BTW for those who've GM'd it, how deep did you make the lake? The module doesn't give a depth and it's likely Cleverquill will use his Awesome Blow to knock a PC off the bridge. And my party's frontline fighter is now wearing full plate and has a tower shield strapped to his arm...

Is it just me or is this module too top heavy with magic loot?

Last session the party beat up three sealbreaker knights, all of whom had +1 full plate, a +1 heavy steel shield and a +1 longsword. That's over 6,000gp of loot per knight. Then the otyughs gave them glove of storing, which contained a scabbard of keen edges, a further 16,000gp worth.

Earlier they were gifted a +2 halberd by Ranton Gandry, Brunna gave them a +2 shield. They beat Kilibrandt and got her +1 shadow studded leather, +1 composite bow, belt of dex +4, and cloak of resistance +2, along with the gear from her hirelings.

And that's not even mentioning the multitude of potions, wands, talismans, etc they keep picking up.

AvarielGray wrote:

I really should have prepped more of this sooner but I'm gonna be doing some pretty sizeable reworking to this book - mostly to connect it better to my players and how we like to play. I'll outline some of these later maybe, but at least partly it involved an infernal cult in Vigil and putting the Redoubt outside of the city rather than under it.

But one of the things I'm kinda stumped over is how best to run the waystation stuff in a not-so-clumsy way. It's a very small space, especially inside, and we've got tight corners and staircases blocking line of sight for spellcasters and like minimum 6 people in combat at once (4 PCs, Okagu, Usundra) and that's if the wights dont get involved early. I feel like its pretty cramped in here. I have a very buff Paladin and a Swashbuckler that crits with 9/10 attacks so it's not going to be a very impactful fight if I don't get creative with this.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how to use these pieces more efficiently? I'm also trying to redesign the map to make it just a bit bigger but Dungeon Alchemist is fighting me on this one, so ways to use the existing space would be appreciated!

It's a bad dungeon, imho, and completely out of place in the story.

I put a revived Mictena (transformed into a sakhil) in it instead. The players lost the fight [ran away, no deaths], but it was fun to run.

It's skippable, methinks.

If you skip it you then have to come up with another way for Aubry to be kidnapped by the Wise Crows and plant another piece of evidence that points to the Shield Emporium.

I presented the waystation as is even though, as someone pointed out above, the fort should be on the other side of the portcullis.

The party noticed the hanged guard was still alive so one of them spider climbed up to rescue him, which drew the attention of the orc-wights and started the fight. Usandra and her hench-orc heard the commotion and rushed out to join in the fray. It was then spells at ten paces until the tank could batter down the portcullis.

So, I never had the issues @AvarielGray has with the tight corners and staircases etc.

My party wasn't exactly shocked to find out they have SR against necro spells. I played it the way quibblemuch suggested, had the cleric roll a d20 without telling him what it was for, described what he felt and then just told him it was SR.

Once he'd cast Death Ward at one party member, one of the team had the bright idea of seeing if they could voluntarily lower the SR, the way you normally can. Again, they weren't surprised to find out they couldn't.

There is fancy +3 armor in room B4. Officer’s Quarters that obviously belongs to Doeswen Aubry. I wonder if the author intended for the PCs to keep them...even though they will rescue her later from room E5. The Barn.

My PCs just cleared out B4. I am wondering if they will they try to keep or sell the armor (and coins and gems)?

(And I think that if they try to sell the armor there is a very good chance it will be recognized as belonging to her. I mean, there is no mass manufacturing in this world. I imagine that it would be easy for a reputable dealer to track the provenance of a set of fancy +3 armor decorated with the flag of Lastwall.)

Allen

Funny you should ask. My party tank - LN Fighter (Tower Shield Specialist) - helped himself to the +3 plate. Last session they rescued Doeswen Aubry. That player couldn't play that day so I refrained from having Aubry ask for it back. I wanted him to make the decision so she'll do so next week when he's present.

I've got my next session coming up this weekend, and it's the first time the party will realise they've got some sort of resistance to necromancy spells.

Their plan is to learn Death Ward spells, cast them on key party members, and have those PCs go up against the spectres in the dyeworks. (They got mauled by negative levels last time, so want to avoid that again).

The SR the obols give them has been utilised before but they don't know it at the time. A spell or two cast at them by Quietus Valthazar didn't work as he'd planned but the party was too busy to notice.

THIS time, it's going to be the Cleric casting Death Ward on other party members. So, should the Cleric notice the SR straight away? Or should I just have him roll a d20, not tell what it's for, and only give him some idea of what's there if he fails?

My gut feeling is that he should realise the players have SR as soon as he attempts to cast.

I recently started this path. And ended it three sessions later, owing to the players.

It provided a good object lesson in why you shouldn't try to game the system. 2/3rds of the party picked aasimar with the alternate racial option that got rid of their elemental resistance and replaced it with negative energy resistance 5. I could practically hear them all thinking "Haha! This path involves the undead so we'll be so cunning and smart we'll give ourselves negative energy resistance..."

Meanwhile, behind the screen, looking at the obol rules, I'm thinking: "You all just traded away a core racial benefit for... nothing."

At least no one tried to bring a dhampir to be extra s-m-r-t.

*facepalm*

EPILOGUE: Despite my warning them, the party decided to take on the Scriptorium first on the Dead Roads. Then, after losing one member almost immediately, they got stubborn and decided to keep trying to win it. They lost another PC. Kept going. Eventually, Mrs. Pedipalp had them all tied up, no one had the capacity to break the bonds, and they decided to quit the campaign instead of trying a last-ditch Diplomacy effort with Mictena (which, no one had brought Diplomacy so it was literally roll a 20 and hope with all the aid anothers and circumstance bonuses it would work out).

I only say this for two reasons:

1. Venting is therapeutic. Some players are Sun f%**ing Tzu when it comes to getting themselves and the rest of the party killed.

2. If your players are thinking "Hey, I'll take negative energy resistance/immunity" or "let's go to the CR 5 dungeon first" AND you want to continue this campaign beyond the first book, be more forceful in insisting they stop.

Actually, I understand the taking of negative energy resistance, it IS something you'd do in a campaign where you think there'll be loads of undead. In fact, I did that recently as a player in Mummy's Mask where I was an asimar, the same as your PCs. In hindsight fire resistance would have served me better, but *shrug*. Those variations are always a mixture of overs and unders anyway.

Regarding the order of the waystations, I had them as checkpoints on a road they were travelling on, so they had to do them in the order presented. I suppose they could have wandered past the Palace of Teeth, intending to come back to it later, but they didn't.

Not taking the DMs warning hint? Dumb dumb DUMB! One of my PCs wanted to be a dhampir and listened when I told he could if he wanted, but I advised against it. The first time the obol's negative energy resistance kicked in he looked at me, realising exactly why I'd warned him off.

My party successfully survived the ambush by Kilibrandt Erstwhile, interrogated the survivors for more information, and headed off to the dyeworks. Then they met the spectres and ran away when the negative levels started piling up. They plan on resting up and coming back with death ward spells and the like.

One thing I wasn't initially sure about was whether the obols would protect the party from the spectres. Their damage is untyped although, logically, it should probably be negative energy damage. Also, the obols don't provide any protection against energy drain. In the end I decided to stick with RAW and no obol protection.

I'm finding the plotline of the module a little weak. The PCs were given a mission by Arazni to tell the Knights of Ozem about the disaster at Roslar's Coffer and warn them Vigil might be next. Technically they fulfilled their mission when the met the Chief Knight at the festival and told her the required message/warning, which she totally ignored. I'd have understood if the PCs had, at that point, just shrugged their shoulders, said 'mission accomplished' and moved on.

Then there's the next phase of evidence gathering. So far they've found plenty of evidence of the thievery of an artifact in Vigil. To them, the link to Roslar's Coffer is tenuous at best.

Fortunately (for me) the party is content to follow the railroad and pick up the plot tokens.

Most of my last session consisted of the party doing some long overdue shopping. Not being able to buy stuff the entire first two modules was stretching the friendship. I've also hinted that they might want to do finish shopping now, rather than wait...

Apart from that, investigations are continuing. They found the dossier at the waystation and then investigated the Shield Emporium. The fire elemental wasn't that much of a challenge as the Sorceress had Cone of Cold, although a few of them took damage along the way.

They didn't question the note they received from EZ, just went along with it. We ended the session with the start of the ambush.